Scott,
One suggestion is to send them one a treasure hunt in the suppermarket. I
give them a list of items of plant origin used in many common products. You
can extract these from packaging labels from anything from processed food to
pharmaceuticals to beauty aids. They have to find the product and connect it
to the plant found in various references.
For many of the fresh fruits and vegetables it is relatively easy and cheap to
purchase them and bring them into the lab. For my Economic Botany course we
commonly have labs on fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Commonly when we are done
examining the plant organs, we make the a big fruit or vegetable salad with
the untouched plants. Students always remember this years later.
Rob Reinsvold
>===== Original Message From Scott_Shumway at wheatonma.edu (Scott Shumway) =====
>Has anyone ever let their class loose in a supermarket as part of a
>laboratory exercise targetting economically important plants? I'd welcome
>suggestions on how this sort of lab could work. Thanks.
>>Scott Shumway
>Associate Professor of Biology
>Dept. of Biology
>Wheaton College
>Norton, MA 02766
>508-286-3945
>"Scott_Shumway at WheatonMa.edu"
>fax 508-285-8278
>>>>---
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